


Switching the Sea

by BornofFlame



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Magic, Unethical Science, i'll add tags as i go, look theres gonna be mermaids, lore heavy, mermaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25318072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BornofFlame/pseuds/BornofFlame
Summary: Evan is a mer.Human life has never interested him and he spends his life where he belongs, under the ocean, where he can’t be bothered by their problems.Nimbus is a human.And her life is a mess.  She spends her time semi locked up in an unethical laboratory, conducting experiments that she despises.When Nimbus is thrown off her boat during a storm, her life becomes permanently entangled with Evan’s and despite the best efforts of both of them, it’s up to Nimbus to save Evan from herself before either of them get killed.ABANDONED ON DECEMBER 6, 2020 LMAO
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	1. Wash out.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time publicly posting something that's not fanfiction, so please don't kill me.  
> if you steal this, I will cut you.

Nimbus threw the microscope at the door, wincing when it broke, barely leaving a dent in the door as she folded in on herself, crouching close to the ground.

She was, in loosest terms, a high school dropout.

If you were going to be a bit more specific with the labels, she was a genius that decided that the experience of high school was for the idiots that peaked at age sixteen.

Gosh, Nimbus  _ wished  _ that he had peaked at sixteen. Then maybe she’d be out at some college somewhere getting drunk instead of being stuck inside a stuffy lab where she could literally smell the ocean.

She stood back up and tugged at her ponytail, before walking to the now dented door and picking up the broken microscope. At least she’d have something to do now instead of painstakingly rewriting the molecular structure of pufferfish venom. 

There was a knock at her door and a moment later, one of her captors swept in with a tray of food, looking disappointed when they saw the broken microscope.

“Breaking things in a fit of rage again, are we Nimby?”

“I haven’t been out in three weeks, you tell me that you wouldn’t resort to fits of breaking useless items in boredom.” Nimbus snapped as she took the tray and bit into an apple angrily.

“If I told you that you could go out tonight, what would you do?”

“I’d get as far away as I could and go live out the rest of my days in the Bahamas.”

“Nimby, you can go out any time you like and you know that.”

“Except for the small detail that you forgot to add. I have to clear wherever I want to go with you guys and my last thirty seven asks have been declined, so what’s the point anymore?”

“The point is to show you that you have freedom Nimby.” Her captor held out their hand expectantly and Nimbus handed back her apple, a scowl deepening across her features.

“If I actually have freedom, give me twenty four hours with no supervision whatsoever.”

“I’m not so sure that that’s a good idea…”

“I’ll promise not to leave town, to not get knocked up and to let you guys put a tracker on me that you can activate after sixteen hours so that you can hunt me down.” Nimbus held out her hand for a handshake and her captor shook it warily.

“Deal.”

“Great, I want it to start tonight.”

“Tonight? That means that the majority of your time will be spent when it’s dark and there’s nothing to do.”

“I have my reasons.” Nimbus tilted her chin up defiantly and her captor took it as a cue to leave, shutting the door behind them. She finished her meal quickly and went back to her microscope, spending the rest of the day fixing the damage.

Finally,  _ finally _ they came for her.

It was standard procedure to either knock her out or to place a bag over her head so that she couldn’t memorize a way out-- which Nimbus had often complained against as to what defined her as ‘free’ and today was no different, with one coming forward with a simple burlap sack that she put over her head with a defeated sigh. It was kinda hard to walk when you couldn’t see where you were going, but she managed until they loaded her into a car, taking off the bag once they were a safe distance away.

“There’s a tracker in this phone and it’ll activate in sixteen hours, or if you leave the city perimeter. No funny business. There’s a thousand dollars on a preloaded credit card in the back of the phone case.” 

“And if I somehow lose the phone?”

“We’ll find you Nimbus, don’t worry.”

Oh, it wasn’t getting lost that worried her. It was getting found. She rubbed the base of her neck worriedly and the car rolled to a stop in front of some bright neon sign and they dumped her out, but not before handing her the phone.

Nimbus stood on the sidewalk until the car turned a corner, before opening the phone’s maps and doing some quick searching.

There was a small clothing outlet about a half a mile from a boat renting service. Wonderful. She could get out of the blazer and slacks she was wearing and have a boat within the half hour.

A half hour later, she was arguing with the boatmaster, who claimed that she couldn’t rent a boat as a minor and Nimbus was explaining that she wasn’t a minor, that she just looked young and he wasn’t having any of it. It wasn’t until she offered him eight hundred dollars that he finally relented, even if she only got the small dinghy for three hours.

She motored out of the docks and out to the open sea, being careful not to hit any other boats on her way out.

Nimbus knew that she was toeing the line with the whole ‘stay within city limits’ rule, but technically she could go a hundred miles out before the U.S. didn’t own the water anymore.

She looked up nervously at the sky, which was already beginning to become cloudy, promising a storm. Nimbus hoped that it wouldn’t come while she was out.

If there was ever a worse time to be wrong, it was now.


	2. Anchor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan, trying to be the deep sea eldritch mer he his: fear me humannnnn
> 
> Nimbus, literally dying: ...
> 
> Evan: Alright, I've known this human for a total of two seconds, most of it with her being unconscious and I will not hesitate to completely ruin my life by saving hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all will be explained, trust me.

Evan felt lazy. 

It was one of those days, where he lay curled around a thermal vent, ignoring the rumbling of his stomach as he enjoyed the warmth of scalding water.

He’d have to go hunting, but with the shifting of the currents, Evan knew that he had at least thirty minutes before a storm hit, which would give him ample coverage against humans.

Evan liked storms, floating on the surface of the water as lightning flashed across the sky and the waves threw him in every direction. Storms made humans scared, in the same way that selkie were scared of losing their pelt and mer were afraid of nets that wrapped around the gills. Evan uncoiled from around the thermal and stretched, his scales bioluminescence shimmering softly in the darkness.

He yawned one last time before shooting up towards the surface. Towards the storm and hopefully a good dinner.

Evan knew he was the fastest in his shiver, or his family so to speak, and according to his mother, he was the prettiest, with his deep blue and gold scales, making him look more like a night sky than a coral fish.

He was a deep sea eldritch and his shiver were coral dwellers. It was fine, they spent most of their time apart, the water closer to the surface often felt too sticky and he would have to dive deeper to avoid feeling like his head was being smashed. He hated that they were all so different and he got lonely by the thermal vents sometimes, but when he did meet up with them, it made the time that they spent together all the better.

But during storms, something made it so he could spend hours up top, not that he wanted to, but he did like the sweeter taste of surface fish. The coral dwellers disliked the cold rain and loud noises of the thunder though and so it was kinda counterintuitive that he could come up and visit when they didn’t want to.

Evan’s face broke the surface and his gills flared open as he took a gasping breath, staring up at the raging sky. 

It was one of the worst storms he’d seen in a long time, 10/10 for the swells and an 11/10 for the thunder and lightning. Evan let the waves throw him around for a few strikes of electricity, before he dove back under to send off an echo for fish.

Nothing.

Strange. He sent out another echo and what bounced back confused him.

Selkie. One that was stuck in human form, and with the distress bouncing back at him, Evan abandoned the idea of dinner and swam in the direction of the panic. He wasn’t one to leave a helpless selkie or siren to drown while stuck in human form. 

The selkie was sinking in the water and when he got close, he realized that their foot was caught, the rope of an anchor dragging them down. 

They were wearing their pelt in one of the more ‘modern’ disguises, a bulky black sweatshirt and their long hair seemed to be bound back by some sort of snake. Evan reached forward and released the snake, and the selkie’s long hair floated down around their face, glittering like a wave of gold.

The selkie thrashed again and Evan swam down and worked their ankle free from the anchor rope. When the selkie didn’t transform, he poked them gently in the face.

Her eyes flashed open and Evan whipped his tail in surprise.

Not a selkie. Her eyes were just as gold as her hair and Evan knew for a fact that selkie only had grey or green eyes. She sucked in a breath and then her body convulsed, not meant to breathe in the ocean.

She was beautiful and Evan cupped her face in his hands and he trilled at her, brow furrowing when she didn’t respond, but instead convulsed again, eyes panicked.

If this not selkie wasn’t responding to siren call, and she for sure didn’t have a tail--

Human.

How long had she been sinking before he found her? Evan brought her lips to his and forced a breath in, which did absolutely nothing to help as she screamed, sucking in more salt water.

He was vaguely aware that they were still sinking and if this human went any deeper, either the cold or pressure would kill her. It was honestly a miracle that she hadn’t passed out from the sheer amount of the sea that she had consumed at this point.

As if that was her cue, the golden human went limp, and Evan felt a literal wave of anger rise up in him. She was  _ his _ and he wasn’t going to let the ocean claim her. Evan pressed his mouth to hers again and gave her some air, hoping that in her unconscious state, she’d take it without a fight.

She didn’t respond and he could hear her heartbeat fading out as the cold and the asphyxiation won over her mortality. It was hard to tell, but he could  _ see _ her soul start to bleed out of her mouth and eyes and he knew that it was only moments before he lost his human.

The ocean only had three options when you were about to die.

You could switch your blood and create a siren, and live out a horrible half life, luring other humans to their deaths. 

You could die and Evan cringed from this option, he was trying to avoid having his human die.

And then there was entanglement. It was rare and only supposed to be done with a member of the same species, under both members' consent. Evan had never been attracted enough to an eldritch to consider entanglement and yet, here he was, a drowning human in front of him and for the first time in his very long life, he  _ wanted _ to.

Evan took the third route and pulled the human close to his chest, quietly praying that he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life, to save her.

He briefly wondered how his shiver would react when they found out, but at the moment, the sea was cold and his human would be okay.

Probably.

The process of entanglement itself was quick and it was made even faster due to the fact that so much of her soul was already out of her body at the time that Evan could just snag the smallest sliver of it before he gave her a gracious chunk of his soul.

She let out a small sigh and he was pleased to note that the entangling had worked, small gills had opened up in the sides of her neck and she now had a smattering of cerulean scales dotting her cheeks like freckles.

The fragments of her soul disappeared back into her and he relaxed in relief when her heart rate picked up, slowly evening out to what humans would consider normal. She unconsciously pressed herself closer to him and Evan felt a wave of embarrassment wash over him as he realized the implications of what he’d done.

He can’t bring her any lower, he’s not sure how much she was affected by his entanglement and it’s not likely that she’d be able to survive the extreme heat of the thermal vents. And he can’t dump her on a dock to wake up on, she’s part of him now and he has to explain that to her.

There’s not a lot of options, but he knows of one spot that could hypothetically work as a neutral zone, a smaller thermal vent on a ledge before the drop off to the deeper trench that he prefers.

Evan gathered the human up, and he swam off to the ledge to rest. By the time he’d made it, he’s exhausted from lack of food and from carrying the human through the water. He practically collapsed in front of the vent, tail winding around the human’s legs to prevent her from kicking if she decides to wake while he is sleeping.

It’s been a long time since he’d had someone to hold and Evan can’t help but admit that it feels nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the whole thing about entanglement is to literally share a part of your soul with your mate and both parties have to agree fully before fragmenting a part of your soul off to mingle with the other. 
> 
> humans can't entangle (they don't have the magic required to split a part of their soul off) and so what Evan did with Nimbus had a fifty-fifty chance of failing since she was already half dead.
> 
> and since it worked, they have to deal with the fact that he's now kinda human and she's kinda mer. which is kinda a problem.
> 
> kudos?  
> comments?

**Author's Note:**

> kudos?  
> comments?


End file.
